“Whatever you say,” said Rik looking off into the distance where the Ultari had vanished. He supposed that they could follow it by the trail of slimy blood it had left behind, but he had no intention of doing so unless forced. Footsteps behind him made him turn and he saw Weasel approach holding a torch. He immediately gestured for the Barbarian to stop chopping and bent over the wizard. Rik put his hand on the poacher’s shoulder.
“He’s mine,” he said. “I killed him.”
Weasel looked miffed but the Barbarian nodded. “He killed him.”
“Fair enough,” said Weasel.
“What about the others?” Rik asked.
“Lieutenant’s down but still breathing. So is Gunther. Pigeon caught it. Leon’s unconscious. Severin is dead. The rest of them legged it.”
Rik wondered yet again how so much could have happened without him noticing it. It took some getting used to, even though he had enough experience to know that combat was chaos.
Weasel moved off down the corridor to see what he could find, the torch making his shadow dance behind him. Rik found an amulet on the wizard’s neck, and a number of pouches, some containing powder, inside the remains of his robe. Many of these had been spilled by the Barbarian’s blade. Rik was careful to avoid touching the ripped containers and their contents, while shoving the rest of them into his own pouch.
“Might be jewels there,” said the Barbarian as if regretting his earlier support. “If there is, just remember I did my part.”
“Fair enough,” said Rik. “Let’s see what we can do for the others.”
“I’m no good at stitching. I’ll help Weasel.” Rik shrugged and returned to his unconscious comrades. It looked like Weasel had actually bothered to perform basic first aid on them, which somewhat surprised Rik.
He checked Leon’s wounds first, and saw that the boy had just taken a hard knock to the head, maybe when the Ultari had started flailing about. Astonishingly, his clay pipe lay nearby unbroken. Rik stuck it in Leon’s tunic pocket along with the lucky feather from his hat then inspected the rest of his comrades.
Gunther looked pale and shocked and his breathing was shallow. Severin was dead. Pigeon’s head had been covered with his own tunic, and when he removed it Rik saw why. His skull had been split like a melon and brains had poured out onto the floor. Rik fought down the urge to be sick, made the Elder Sign of Passage over him, and gave his attention to the Lieutenant.
He looked around. There was nobody else present at the moment. Like a bolt sent straight from Shadow it struck him that he could simply put his hand over Sardec’s mouth and suffocate him. The Terrarch was paler even than Gunther and his breathing was shallow already. For a moment, his hand hovered over the Lieutenant’s face. He could take his own personal revenge on the Terrarch race right here, right now, if he wished and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.
Nothing, he thought, except that he could not bring himself to kill someone so helpless; nothing except that his soul would go straight to the Shadow; nothing except the fact that somebody might return at any minute. He shook his head and tried to ignore his aches and pains. What was he thinking? He wiped the truesilver blade and returned it to its scabbard, then hunted around for his own weapons. Carefully he bit open a cartridge and loaded and primed the pistol, then set himself down to wait until his companions returned and could help him to move the wounded.
It was not long before Weasel and the Barbarian appeared. “We found something,” said the poacher.
Chapter Eight
“What have you found?” Rik asked Weasel.
“Books, Halfbreed.”
“I said we’d best burn them,” said the Barbarian. “They are wizard’s books. No good can come of them. No good ever came of any book.”
“But?” said Rik. He allowed his tiredness and impatience to show in his voice. He knew this pair. If they had wanted to, they would simply have burned the books. They would not have come to consult with him. Therefore they must think there was something to be gained from this.
“Weasel said they might be treasure. He said that the right people pay well for such books.”
Rik knew in his gut that he had come to one of the cross-roads of his life. These books had belonged to a dark wizard, one who had been up to no good whatsoever down here. If they were what he suspected, they contained forbidden lore, the kind that a man could get burned at the stake for possessing. The mage they had just fought had been no saint. Quite possibly his own knowledge had driven him mad. The best thing to do with the books was to burn them. And yet…
And yet, those books and that knowledge in them represented the gateway to a world he had always wanted to be part of, the world of the sorcerer. Perhaps they contained something that would let him forge a different destiny, that could steer him away from the early death or the poorhouse, or the life of an itinerant limbless beggar that waited many ex-soldiers.
Perhaps there was something in them that could let him better himself, or at least seize some control of his life. A flash of rebelliousness passed through him. He felt the lure of the forbidden.
What if the knowledge in those books was dark, frowned on by society? What had society ever done for him? And more than anything else, he was curious.
He saw the others staring at him. Weasel licked his lips, and fumbled at the hilt of his knife. Rik realised that they were nervous too but for different reasons. They were making an offer which if reported to the wrong people could get them burned at the stake.
He could almost read Weasel’s mind. His life was on the line here in more ways than one. If this pair thought he might report them to the Inquisition, he would not leave this place alive. They were waiting for an answer, one on which his life could well depend.
“He’s right,” said Rik. He paused for a moment, to weigh his next few words, but the Barbarian leapt in eagerly.
“You mean you think we found treasure?”
“I mean we may have found it, if those books are grimoires. There are people who pay well for spell books and such. At least there were in Sorrow.”
Weasel shot the Barbarian an I-told-you-so look.
“How much?” the big man asked. Rik looked around meaningfully, concentrating his gaze on the Lieutenant. This was not the sort of conversation you wanted overheard. The others had known it already. They were speaking in very low tones indeed. All three of them shuffled towards the chamber from which Weasel and the Barbarian had come. It was a small gallery containing a rickety wooden table, a stool and a pallet for sleeping on.
“How much?” the Barbarian repeated.
“Gold,” said Rik.
“Lots of gold?” The Barbarian looked excited.
“I don’t know,” said Rik. He thought of the Old Witch and her web of dubious connections. “It was never my field. I knew someone who dealt in these things sometimes.”
“You would not be trying to put one over on your old comrades now?” asked Weasel with a slight undertone of menace in his voice. Rik shook his head. It was typical of the man, he thought. He was always trying to put one over on the world, so he thought the world was always trying to do the same back.
“Let’s see these books,” Rik said.
There were books, and lots of other stuff besides, scattered about what had obviously been the wizards temporary sanctum in a small gallery just off the main tunnel. Rik counted the books. There were half a dozen of them.
They were small, leather bound, some with flakes of embossing on their sides. He flicked through them. He was certain one was a spell-book. It contained the almost musical notation he remembered from the Old Witch’s books. Another looked like a journal. It contained a maps of what he guessed was this mine. Flicking through it, he could see that if it were correct then the whole complex was much deeper and stranger than anyone had guessed.